Weight
by NotWhoYouThinkThisIs
Summary: What was waiting for Sirius, beyond the Veil? Only a brother, one that would have waited forever. No slash, just Sirius and Regulus and far too many regrets… R&R, pretty-pretty please!


**Author's Note:**

**Tequila:** ooookay… I freely admit to a mild—

**Justin:** MILD?! You call that _mild_?

**Tequila:** as I was saying, a _very mild_ obsession with the Black family—

**Justin:** mild… she calls that _mild_ --snorts--

**Tequila:** and this is the product of that MILD interest :D

**nb:** the regular text is Regulus's narration/speech to Sirius over the years, lasting from the moment of Regulus's death until the moment of Sirius's death, the italics are a series of consecutive flashbacks—neither is contiguous!

**Disclaimer:** Don't own. Don't sue. Kthnxbai.

**Weight **

I stand absolutely still in the dark, fetid air, surrounded by unsure shapes of mist and fog. I am waiting for someone.

There is no time, not really. I know I have been waiting for a long moment, but I could not tell you hours or days or years. All I know is that I will wait forever.

"_Sirius! Siri, wait…" the tiny child trips in his headlong dash, falls, and lies on the ground, stunned for a moment before bursting into tears. The older brother that was nearly out the door turns and comes back, sighing._

"_Regulus… come on. Shh. It's okay. You're okay. Okay…" the nine-year-old glances left and right, listening. He is losing his patience. "Shut up!" This, Regulus can understand. If he doesn't shut it, his big brother will give him something to cry about. He sniffles for a moment, and then falls silent. "Are you okay, Reggie? 'Cause I can wait, if you need to get one of the house elves to fix it." _

_The younger boy nods, face still wet from tears. "Will you really wait? Promise?"_

_Sirius sighs. "I promise I'll wait. I'll wait a million bajillion years." He is always waiting for his younger brother. _

_Sometimes, Sirius swears Regulus's first word was "wait!"_

I can see, sometimes, just glimpses, when the clouds part slightly and a weak sort of sunlight trickles through. It strikes the gates behind me, gleaming and white and shining. The gates are very tall. I peer down, through the seething masses of vapor. You sit, head in your hands, in a tiny, dark room. What do you see?

I will wait. Even though you left and I know you didn't want to, and you knew that I knew that, but did you know that I knew that you did? You wanted to leave them and not me, but you couldn't. You chose. And I lost.

"_Sirius?" a whisper in the long, shadowy hall. "Don't."_

_The boy who turns sharply at the noise is elegant, even when startled. He is startled now, but he does not drop the trunk or the broom he carries, and even in his anxiety he makes not the least whisper of sound as he turns. "Regulus. Going to tattle to mummy?" the voice, although low, is snarling. It cuts straight to the bone._

"_No."_

"_What, then? Come to gloat? Finally, you're the heir. You're the perfect son, the perfect Slytherin, the perfect—"_

"_You know that's not why I'm here. Don't do it, Sirius."_

_The laugh is mocking, and it bites hard. The Blacks have sharp teeth and they put them to good use. "Why the hell not? Do you have a single sodding reason I shouldn't? Give me one good reason."_

_There is a pause. The one reason—the only reason—stretches between them for a long, aching moment. But in the end, they both know it will go unsaid. _

"_Go then. Blood traitor."_

_Sirius pivots smoothly, all deadly grace, and unless you looked closely, you would never notice the tears sliding down his face. But Regulus knows they're there._

_Sirius is almost to the door when there is a clatter of footsteps behind him, and his brother's arms are around him and they're both crying. Tears for what won't ever be again, for what never really was but might have been._

"_Reggie… shhh…"_

"_Siri…"_

_He leaves, then, in the dark of night, and his face is dry. The next time they see each other, at Hogwarts, there will be curses thrown, and Regulus will spend the night in the hospital wing. They will never speak again._

You didn't love me enough, or I didn't love you enough, or we loved ourselves too much. You were always so brave—a Gryffindor. Of course. You were too bright, too beautiful, too much light and laughter for us. You were never a Black. We exist in shadows, and they ate you up. And now you sit in shadows again. It will eat your soul. Someone needs to save you from yourself. I cannot. I am not brave.

"_Regulus, pet…" she is a beautiful woman, but the beauty is harsh and bitter. Bellatrix Black has too much soul to be easily contained in a mortal body. "Whatever is the matter, duck? Not having…" the pause takes on Olympian proportions, "second thoughts?"_

"_Of course not." The answer is yes. He did not sign up for killing children, but even at only seventeen, Regulus Black is not an idiot. There are no second thoughts, once the mark is burned into your arm. There is nowhere to run, nowhere to hide that He cannot find you. There is nothing to do but obey, and hope that when you leap something will catch you._

_He is not brave. Not like the brother he never speaks of, but who always waits in his thoughts. But Regulus Black is a Black to the bone, and Blacks do not shirk their duty. Even when it is an unpleasant one. Regulus Black has been pushed too far. He knows that the Dark Lord's plans can be thwarted by one man with an elf—he knows the elf. Kreacher has been hidden at home, but this is enough. He will go tonight._

I'm so sorry that I failed you. Or you failed me. Or what does it even matter, because you promised you'd wait and you didn't. You left for Hogwarts and the last thing you said was that you'd wait. We'd be together in just a year—all _I_ had to do was wait. I did, but then you were in Gryffindor and I was in Slytherin and… you were disappointed? You were jealous? I know I was. Standing in the hall and knowing I had to choose between you… and them. Cissy, there at the table, staring me down (scary sixth year) and Bella, and Uncle Cygnus, and Mum and Dad, not there but still sitting at the Slytherin table, waiting. Andie chose. You chose. And that damn hat told me to choose—Gryffindor, or Slytherin? Did it give you the same choice? How in hell did you find the courage?

_He knew when he told Kreacher to take him to the lake that it wouldn't be pretty… but God. He stands in front of the basin and he knows that this is it. One last choice. _

"Well, boy, which will it be, Slytherin or Gryffindor… I don't have all day, you know."

_One last chance. His life doesn't have to end like this—not at seventeen. He's never really done anything, not yet. He isn't ready. _Is anyone? _The thought keeps teasing him, intruding on his melancholy. He has to do this. Now. Before he loses whatever nerve he ever possessed. The boy turns to the house-elf trembling by his side. "Kreacher. Take this," he hands over a locket, a gift to Andie that she'd abandoned in her flight six years before. It seemed fitting, to use her locket to deceive the Dark Lord. She would approve. "and when the basin is empty," he'll have to drink the stuff and it's going to be hell, "switch the lockets, and leave without me." He pauses. "You must swear, Kreacher—no matter what I tell you afterwards, leave as soon as you switch the lockets, go home and destroy the locket you will take out of the basin. And you must never tell Mother about any of this. She must never know, Kreacher, do you understand?" The elf nods, weeping now._

_Regulus Black leans down and drinks, and as he does he hears the screams of those he killed, hears their cries, mixed in with his brother's voice, and all he thinks, as he drinks and drinks and drinks the ichor, is that finally, he's doing right by his big brother, and won't Sirius be proud, and it doesn't matter how much it hurts because there are some things a Black_ just has to do_. And the burning thirst never leaves, and he goes to the lake, desperate for ease, and as he's pulled under and the water fills him up and his lungs burn for air, all he thinks is, _I'll wait for you, Sirius_. And then there's nothing more to be thought. _

I swore I'd wait, and I will. I hope it is a long wait—I hope I wait years. I hope against hope that you live a long life, a long and happy one; that you leave that damned prison where nothing is happy and you live in the sunlight, because you need the sunlight. You always needed the sunlight, and we never understood that, and I'm sorry. I'm so damn sorry. And I'll wait forever for you, and I hope I do, and it'll never expiate the guilt that has driven me for years—is it years? I hope to God it has been, and many of them.

_It's peaceful, as the young man—no longer a boy—finds himself in the shifting clouds, a world of haze. There is a gate in front of him, tall and white and shining, and others all around him are walking through. He would too, but he has to wait. He doesn't know why, or who for, but he has to wait. That's all he knows. Later, he will remember why and where and who and how and all the tidy details of a life of regret, but now, all he knows is that he'll wait forever if he has to._

You're out, and I could shout for joy. I can't see how, or more than a few shifting details before it's all hidden in the haze, but I can see you in the sun again, finally smiling. You should smile. I do. When I think of you, when I think of Andie, the ones who left. I can even smile a bit at the ones who didn't, think wistfully of Bella and Cissy, trapped forever in what they were told to want. The Black children, all of us tossed together like puppies, indignant at being told to play nicely and not bother our elders and betters. I smile when I think of what I have done, my final (and only) act of defiance. It was a foolish little note, one last bit of gloating, a last little bit of revenge for everything. I hope it hurt him, just a little bit. I hope he knew that The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black hated him just a little, teensy bit. Just a part of us, the two of us, the two who hated him. We always acted together, and I'm sorry I was so slow, I'm sorry it took me three long and messy years to follow you, and I'm sorry you never knew. You thought I died for no reason, thought I died hating you. I hope you won't find out the truth for a long, long time. I can wait for a while. There's nothing left but waiting.

_Another man is there now, and time slows a bit, even in this place where there is no time, when they see one another. They are silent for a long moment, and then the smiling and laughing and crying and hugging all seem to happen at once. All hurts are eased, all wounds are healed. In this place, knowledge is like water—it spreads without trying. You do not need to tell for others to hear. But they will speak anyway._

"_I changed my mind. You were right, and I knew it, and I tried to—"_

"_I know." And he does. He knows all the things he never knew, and all the reasons he ever owned for hating his baby brother vanish, and all that is left was a love that never really left, even in all the years of hating. All that remains is a younger brother perpetually left behind, always calling out for him to wait, who waited for him in turn._

"_You waited?" the older one asks, a sort of choked amazement in his voice, "all this time?"_

"_Has it been long?" there is eagerness in the younger man's voice, "I hoped it had been long… that you'd had your time in the sun."_

"_Sixteen years."_

"_Not as long as I'd hoped."_

"_Longer than I'd expected."_

"_Yes. Yes. Well. Now that you're here."_

"_You can go in—do you know…"_

"_Not yet."_

_They turn to one another, and smile a smile that is meant only for brothers._

_And Sirius and Regulus Black enter the gates together._

It was worth the wait, Sirius…

**A/N (the second part… which waited…):**

**Tequila:** awwwwwwwww… I wuv Sirius… and Regulus… and Andromeda… and Narcissa… and Bellatrix… and—

**Justin:** oookay, Tequila, that's enough now, I know you can reel off the entire tapestry, but I think we should just stop and ask for some reviews now, ok?

**Tequila:** --pouts-- fine. be that way :S REVIEW, PPL!


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